Best Day Trips from Barcelona: Montserrat, Sitges and Tarragona
Barcelona is an excellent base for day trips. Three of the most worth-doing are in completely different directions and completely different in character: a mountain monastery, a beach town, and a Roman city. You can do any of them on a single day using public transport, without renting a car and without a tour group.
Montserrat: The Mountain Monastery
Montserrat is a massif of eroded conglomerate rock 50 km northwest of Barcelona — the kind of landscape that looks like it was generated by a fantasy film set designer who didn't get the memo about geological realism. The peaks are serrated (montserrat means "serrated mountain" in Catalan), the vertical faces are orange-pink in the afternoon light, and a Benedictine monastery has been sitting in a notch halfway up the mountain since the 9th century.
The monastery houses the Black Madonna — La Moreneta — a Romanesque wooden statue from the 12th century that is the patron saint of Catalonia. The basilica is free to enter; the statue is housed in a side chapel and venerated by a steady queue of pilgrims. Even if the religious dimension doesn't interest you, the basilica's interior is genuinely beautiful: Gothic altarpiece, extraordinary silver canopy above the statue, and the boys' choir (Escolania de Montserrat — one of the oldest in Europe, founded in the 13th century) that sings daily at 1pm and 6:45pm.
The other reason to go is the hiking. Three trail networks ascend from the monastery to different peaks — Sant Joan, Santa Cova, and Sant Jeroni (the highest at 1,236 meters). The views from any of them extend to the Pyrenees on clear days and to the Mediterranean. The Sant Joan cable car (€14 return) gets you halfway up. The Sant Jeroni trail from the cable car station is about two hours round trip.
How to get there: FGC train from Plaça d'Espanya (Line R5 direction Manresa) to Monistrol de Montserrat, then the rack railway (cremallera) up to the monastery. Total journey: about 1 hour 15 minutes. A combined ticket (Tot Montserrat) at €22.50 includes train, cremallera, cable cars, and museum entry. Alternatively, the Aeri (aerial cable car, departing from a different station on the R5 line) takes you up in 5 minutes for a different view of the approach — the combined ticket covers this too.
How much time: A half day for the monastery and one hike. A full day if you want multiple trails.
Sitges: The Town with the Best Beach Near Barcelona
Sitges is 35 km south of Barcelona along the coast, and it has several things that the city itself doesn't: a calm old town, beaches that aren't overwhelmed by the volume of visitors, and a seafront promenade that feels like a functioning town rather than a tourist infrastructure. It's also known for the best carnival in Catalonia (February), a celebrated film festival (October), and a particularly lively LGBTQ+ scene that has been part of its identity since the 1960s.
The beaches are the main event. Sitges has 17 of them along a 5-km stretch of coast. The central beaches (Platja de la Ribera, Platja dels Balmins) are closest to the old town and most popular. The beaches further north and south along the coast are quieter and accessed by a walking path. Balmins, at the far southern end, is naturist and consistently the calmest.
The old town is genuinely pretty — white 17th and 18th-century houses, the Church of Sant Bartomeu i Santa Tecla on a cliff directly above the sea, a small cluster of good restaurants on the streets behind the promenade (Carrer Major, Carrer de Sant Pau). The Museu Cau Ferrat, a 19th-century artist's house built into the cliffs, has a good collection of El Greco and Picasso alongside the work of its original owner, Santiago Rusiñol.
How to get there: Cercanías train from Barcelona Passeig de Gràcia or Sants, Line R2 Sud. Journey time: 35–40 minutes. Frequency: every 30 minutes approximately. Cost: €4.60 with T-Casual (Zone 4 supplement needed — buy at the machine). Trains run until late, so there's no pressure on timing.
How much time: A half day is enough for the beaches and the old town. A full day if you want to eat well and linger.
Tarragona: Roman Ruins on the Mediterranean
Tarragona was the capital of the Roman province of Hispania Citerior, the most important Roman city in the Iberian Peninsula before Madrid existed as a concept. The physical remains of that history are scattered across the modern city in a way that requires no special effort to find — you walk through Roman gates, past sections of city walls, and alongside the remains of a forum just going about daily life.
The centerpiece is the amphitheatre, built in the 2nd century AD directly into the cliff above the sea. From the stands (or what remains of them) you look out over the Mediterranean. It held 14,000 people. The setting alone is worth the trip.
The Roman circus (for chariot races, not animals — that was the amphitheatre) ran beneath what is now the medieval upper town, and significant sections of the vaulted underground structure are accessible. The Museu Nacional Arqueològic de Tarragona has the best collection of Roman mosaics in Spain. The Cathedral is a 12th–14th-century Romanesque-Gothic building built over the old Roman temple — the transition between styles is visible in different parts of the building.
Tarragona also has good beaches, which surprises people — the Platja del Miracle is directly below the amphitheatre, and the Platja de l'Arrabassada (accessible by a short taxi or bus ride) is one of the best beaches in the province.
How to get there: Cercanías or Regional trains from Barcelona Sants or Passeig de Gràcia, Line R15 or Media Distancia. Journey time: 35–55 minutes depending on service. Cost: €7–10. Trains run frequently — at least twice an hour in peak hours.
How much time: A comfortable full day: amphitheatre, forum, cathedral, lunch, beach. The city is compact and walkable.
Which to Choose
For nature and landscape: Montserrat. There is nothing comparable within day-trip distance of the city.
For a beach day with character: Sitges. Better beaches than Barcelona itself and a town worth walking.
For history: Tarragona. The Roman remains are genuinely extraordinary and almost no international tourists make the trip, which means you have the amphitheatre largely to yourself on a weekday.
You can combine Sitges and Tarragona in one day — they are on the same train line and the journey between them is 20 minutes.
Explore Barcelona with Trevurs
Understanding what Barcelona was before it became what it is — the Roman colony, the medieval trading city, the industrial powerhouse that generated Gaudí's patrons — gives you a different lens on both the city and its surroundings. Trevurs's Barcelona audio tours cover the historic center and the Gothic Quarter created by people who know the city beyond the surface layer. Download the app before you head out to the day trips.